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Tag Archives: No Justice No Pride

Activism is nothing if it isn’t intersectional. If feminism is principally about challenging oppression, resisting patriarchy, and ending inequality, then what is the point of a feminism that is exclusionary? Why struggle for gender equity if it only applies to the wealthy? What is class consciousness that isn’t aware of race and gender and other differences? Why fight for gay rights if you’re going to abandon trans allies? How can you see liberation realized if you don’t stand up for queer rights? A truly intersectional politics should be about ending all forms of oppression and inequality, which means centering those most marginalized.

I’m not in DC right now. I’m on a plane. But today a group of radical queer activists and their allies – a group that I’m a part of – is protesting the Capital Pride parade, demanding that DC’s Pride celebration – ostensibly in commemoration of Stonewall – remember that queer and transgender people were at the center of that riot in 1969 and should not be left behind.

There is a long history of queer people protesting Pride, most recently in my hometown when the group Trans Queer Pueblo interrupted the Phoenix Pride Parade, wedging themselves between the police contingent of the parade and the sheriff, demanding that Pride not include police that racially profile and facilitate deportations and that it reject funding from Bank of America, which is invested in private immigration detention centers that hold LGBTQ immigrants (video of that protest here).

The event that Pride commemorates was the Stonewall Riot, a riot of queer, trans, and gay people, led in part by trans women of color, against a police raid on a gay bar and homophobic and transphobic state violence in general. That doesn’t necessarily mean Pride has to be a riot, and celebration is certainly a form of protest, but this history does mean that those celebrating the movement that started at Stonewall should not leave queer and trans folks behind, and it should be a reminder that state violence is not a friend of the LGBTQ movement. A truly intersectional gay rights movement is not only inclusive of queer and trans communities, but also acknowledges that some LGBTQ people are also people of color, immigrants, indigenous, disabled, or members of other communities (If you watch the video from Phoenix, at one point a parade-goer shouts “this is not your day,” as if undocumented immigrants can’t be gay.) If it’s not intersectional, it’s not real liberation.

It’s clear that Capital Pride needs the reminder.

Today, No Justice No Pride will be holding Capital Pride accountable for disregarding the concerns of queer and trans people in DC. There will be a rally at 3 at McPherson Square to celebrate the LGBTQ community’s radical roots. There will be an alternative Pride march which is family-friendly and just as celebratory as Pride but without all the egregious problems I list below. People will also be protesting at Pride itself. Tonight there will also be a QT Night of Healing and Resistance centering queer and trans experiences and promoting the work of organizations and artists in the community instead of corporations and celebrities that aren’t local or LGBTQ. These alternative events are rooted in DC’s queer communities and are committed to the radical foundations of the LGBTQ movement.

No Justice No Pride already pointed out that an executive producer of Capital Pride, Bryan Pruitt, had penned a transphobic column in 2016 that said activism centered on trans access to public facilities such as restrooms was based on a lie, arguing that “there is not an epidemic of trans people being denied access to public facilities” because “if they are truly trans, other folks don’t even notice.” Pruitt was fired after No Justice No Pride brought this to light.

That is a step in the right direction. But Capital Pride offers only small concessions and has refused No Justice No Pride’s broader critiques of how the parade is run. While Pride should center the diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer communities that are a part of this movement and this city, the event seems more focused on giving platforms to sponsoring corporations, many of which benefit from the status quo and even contribute to the oppression of queer and trans people rather than work towards a more equal future. Here are just some of the reasons that Capital Pride is not something to be proud of.

The Metropolitan Police Department is included in the parade despite the fact that policing as an institution has always preyed on the LGBTQ community. The modern gay rights movement began after a police raid at Stonewall, and policing of queer spaces, trans bodies, and gay rights in general continues across this country. MPD in particular has been accused of disproportionately targeting and harassing trans women [pdf] through its implementation of “Prostitution Free Zones” in the past (the zones were repealed in 2014) and a 2015 report noted that the violence that the trans community in DC suffers includes “inhumane treatment of trans persons by members of the police” (49).

That same 2015 report, from the DC Trans Coalition, notes that “certain segments of the trans community are not only at a much higher risk of violence but are also at a significantly higher risk of violence at the hands of police and other agents of the state” and that “over a third of respondents who had interacted with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) as a trans person reported experiencing disrespect” (76). Crucially, “among all respondents, and not exclusively those who had interacted with MPD as a trans person, the majority (56%) reported not feeling comfortable approaching the police” (76). A review of MPD’s Hate Crimes Assessment Task Force found that, with the exception of the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, “most transgender people do not trust the police” and that “the reported treatment of transgender people by MPD officers is a matter of serious concern” (4). These same police will be participating in Capital Pride, meaning that Capital Pride is not welcoming to the trans community. Capital Pride would rather help pinkwash the police than listen to trans concerns.

But, while it is not a safe or welcoming place for people who are trans, Capital Pride is very welcoming to corporations. Pride in many cities has become less about celebrating the progress of gay rights and more about celebrating capitalism. This led one writer in The Advocate to denounce that “the only audacity in modern pride now is its naked devotion to the almighty dollar. No better examples of this is Washington, D.C.’s Pride celebration and parade, Capital Pride.”

Several corporate sponsors of Capital Pride include banks such as Wells Fargo, which is not only well-known for a history of redlining, illegal foreclosures, and preying on poor communities, but is also a direct investor in private prisons. The criminalization of trans people is an ongoing problem that has resulted in the mass incarceration of the trans community, especially trans people of color. The National Center for Trans Equality reported [pdf] in 2015 that 1 in 6 transgender people have spent at least some time in jail, including nearly half of all black trans people. If LGBTQ liberation means a world without police and prisons, then Pride should model that vision, not promote those who invest in and benefit from oppression. Wells Fargo is also an investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatens the land, livelihood, and sovereignty of indigenous communities, including people who identify as LGBTQ or two-spirit.

As one critic of the corporatization of Pride argued in 2015, “As queers become ever more accepted into mainstream society, we should use our newfound political and economic clout to demand equity for the least privileged among us, not abandon those still marginalized in our quest for a bigger, badder party. If Bank of America wants a Capital Pride sponsorship slot, let it fund a shelter for homeless trans youth first.” As one No Justice No Pride organizer put it, queer and trans people should be able to attend and participate in their local pride march “without funding our own oppression.”

In 2012 and 2013, protesters interrupted the Wells Fargo float in Capital Pride for these exact reasons, cutting off the float in the middle of the parade and dancing in front of it. Last year GetEQUAL submitted a petition demanding that Capital Pride drop Wells Fargo to “get prisons out of pride.” These critiques are not new, but nothing has changed. When Capital Pride says that No Justice No Pride’s critiques are being received too late to make changes this year, this dismisses years of organizing in the DC community that have been saying the same thing over and over again.

Defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gruman are also sponsoring Capital Pride, despite the fact that they have proudly done business with countries where homosexuality is punishable by death, such as Saudi Arabia, for decades. Some of the money they give to Capital Pride comes from these governments, states that kill people for being gay or gender-non-conforming. On top of all of this, the pinkwashing of military contractors tries to convince us that bombs made by a gay-friendly corporation are okay, when we should be fighting to end all wars.

Another prominent sponsor of Capital Pride is Maryland Live! Casino, owned by real estate developer The Cordish Companies and the vision of Reed Cordish, who is now an adviser to the Trump White House. Trump is, of course, no friend to the LGBTQ community, having recently rescinded federal protections for trans students through the Departments of Education and Justice. Just as people boycotted Uber over its CEO’s involvement in Trump’s transition team, people should not shy away from telling Cordish that cozying up with an administration that hurts trans people comes at a cost.

In response to requests from No Justice No Pride that such toxic sponsors be replaced with local, community-centered groups working directly with the LGBTQ community, Capital Pride has said that it would not be able to function without big money corporate sponsors. But saying that Pride would not be possible without the money of banks and corporations assumes a particular type of Pride – one that is not rooted in the community. Pride can be a protest and a celebration of the LGBTQ community without being sanitized and corporate. All you need is the community.

Capital Pride has also justified its refusal to change by insisting that it is an apolitical event, ignoring the history of the LGBTQ movement’s politics. But this assumes that striving for an “apolitical” parade isn’t itself a political decision. It assumes that shunning queer and trans voices is not political; it assumes that giving platforms to corporations and police is not political. But every decision involves taking sides. The problem is not whether Capital Pride is or isn’t political – the problem is its bad politics.

The truth is, Pride would not be possible without the radical gay, queer, and trans activists who have built the LGBTQ movement into what it is over decades of intersectional work that was often explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-police. The truth is, Pride is and has always been political, and should be committed to ending oppression. Today, protesters are calling for a truly revolutionary Pride and a return to the LGBTQ movement’s radical roots. Today, protesters are trying to imagine a more equal, safe, and just Pride for this city. The theme for this year’s parade is “Unapologetically Proud.” No Justice No Pride is unapologetically siding with the marginalized. It is unapologetically political and unapologetically radical.